‘Happy birthday. You’re going to the inauguration’ & other stories

Last Wednesday, 15 people from the Seattle area gathered at Victrola Coffee and Art on Capitol Hill to talk about what they’re doing next week: going to Barack Obama’s inauguration.

If you were anywhere near Seattle on election night, you remember how the city exploded with emotion after Obama’s victory (refresh your memory here and especially here). You might have even been among the hundreds, if not thousands, that poured out onto the streets, crying, hugging, yelling, crossing accepted boundaries of human interaction to connect with anyone — everyone — who felt like they did: overwhelmed.

Michael Thurmond bought airline tickets to Obama’s inauguration in June. He surprised his wife, Olivia, with the news on her birthday. (Mónica Guzmán/Seattle P-I)

For many, the adventure ended there. Others looked to January, and made plans.

Some were way ahead of schedule.

“If he was going to win, we were definitely going to be there,” Michael Thurmond, a program manager from Mill Creek, told me at Victrola. “We just took a chance.”

Thurmond booked a January flight and hotel stay for two in Washington, D.C., in June. June. On Nov. 21, he surprised his wife, Olivia, a bank senior vice president, with news of the trip. It was her birthday.

Then in December, the couple took photos of Obama they had gathered from magazines and newspapers and made two 8-by-10-inch fliers. They framed the fliers, covered them in Christmas wrapping paper and gave one to their 18-year-old daughter, Jasmine, and another to their 16-year-old son, Damian. Michael and Olivia laughed when they remembered the look on their kids’ faces when they realized that they, too, would see the first African-American be sworn in as president of the United States of America.

Olivia made an understatement: “Their friends are jealous.”

Will Dean is one of four Seattleites who will perform in the Inaugural Parade with the Lesbian and Gay Band Association. Dean plays the trumpet. (Mónica Guzmán/Seattle P-I)

Well, maybe “see” is the wrong word to describe how the Thurmonds will experience the inauguration. Tens of thousands of Washingtonians applied to their local congressional offices for seated tickets to Obama’s swearing-in ceremony. Very few actually got them. So most of the 5 million people some expect to swarm D.C. next week will gather on the National Mall and watch the historic event happening on the other side of the U.S. Capitol on several large Jumbotron screens.

That’s right. Like millions of Americans, they’ll see it on TV. But don’t tell them that makes it any less awesome. They’ll be there. They’ll feel it. Like no one else can.

Thirty-one-year-old Toni Wolcott wore a blue Obama t-shirt to Wednesday’s meetup. When I asked her why she was so moved by him, she choked up.

“It’s amazing it’s happening. We get to live through this whole revolution,” she said, her eyes wet. “I have lots of Republicans in my family. It’s just a regular election for them. Not for me.”

Of course, there’s still room for small miracles. Lori Fredericks, 25, an advertising agent, booked her flight to D.C. in November. She applied to her local congressional offices, like so many others, for a ticket to see the ceremony up close, but didn’t count on it. She was happy enough that her parents had agreed to pay her $220 D.C. plane ticket as her Christmas present. Last Wednesday she talked about the inauguration with a glow and spunk unmatched by anyone else there. She shared statistics, links, resources. She arrived early and left late. This week she finally heard from Congressman Norm Dicks’ office. Fredericks, who lives in Dicks’ congressional district, got two tickets to Obama’s swearing-in.

For many of the people I met at Victrola, this isn’t just about going to D.C. It’s about everything it took to get there. Every decision, every setback, every small victory.

Eric Sievers bought plane tickets for himself and his family — including 9-year-old Ben — on Election Day (Mónica Guzmán/Seattle P-I)

Eric Sievers, a Seattle cancer researcher, watched the election results come in at home with his family — his kids, 9-year-old Ben and 12-year-old Nick, his wife, Lenna Liu, and their dog, Brownie. Right about when the networks called Pennsylvania for Obama, Sievers went to Kayak.com and began to look for a way to get the four of them to D.C. on Jan. 20. Taking the trip hadn’t occurred to him before, but as he refreshed the page, each time seeing airline prices climb higher and higher, the idea became an objective. They were going. It was just a question of how.

“There was such a shared sense of history for us. We have kids that are mixed race — it was the sense of possibility,” he said, his hand on Ben’s shoulder.

“We shared 9/11. And we can share moments of joy and possibility as well,” Sievers said. “Our collective consciousness has been aching for that kind of possibility.”

Stay tuned to seattlepi.com and the Big Blog for more about the inauguration — and from it. The 15 people who gathered at Victrola Wednesday are going, but so are hundreds of your neighbors. And so am I.

Let us know what you’re thinking ahead of the event. If you feel like speaking out in a bigger way than just leaving a comment on a blog post, we’re taking essay submissions here.